A Long Way From Home

Summary: Two LA county paramedics travel across the US to a small town in NC to help start a new program there. They meet the woman medic who has been working to organize the program, and then the adventure and romance begins.

AN: Yes, I know you're going to scream mary sue at me, but I looked up the definition of mary sue, and once this fic is complete, it will not fit that description. This is me living out my dream of being a paramedic back in the 70's, and meeting Johnny Gage and having him fall for me. It's a story. Read it! I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1: The Meet and Greet

When Anita got up this morning, she could hardly contain her excitement. Today, she was to meet two of LA county's finest paramedics. This was finally her chance to help get a real medic program started here in her home town of Shelby, North Carolina. She had been working at the local fire department for a couple of years and had used her own money to train as a paramedic down in Charlotte, NC. However, upon completion of her training, and obtaining her certification, she soon realized that she would not be able to act fully in Cleveland County as a paramedic. The city and county governments didn't have money allocated to pay their fire department personnel, except the captain of the station. How were they going to pay some hot shot medic who wasn't even licensed in the county when they didn't even pay their own firemen?

The local hospital did seem to like the idea of having someone in the field, but money was always an obstacle. So, Nita just kept on trying, hoping that someday, things would get better.

After working for about three months volunteering as a medic for the fire department, the city government finally put her on the payroll. Now, she wasn't in it for the money: she just wanted to help the people who needed it, who might not make it without some knowledgeable assistance.

But of course, there was so much politics concerning her working in the station. At first, it was about her being a woman in a man's world. Then, it was the guys being jealous about her getting paid. The fire department in Shelby was on a volunteer basis, so none of them got paid, except the captain, and now, Nita.

However, after working with the guys for a few months, she finally won the respect she craved and deserved. Granted, saving the Captain's life when he had that heart attack didn't hurt the situation. And, when some of the doctor's had driven to a convention in Gastonia, they had had a really bad car crash coming back through Kings Mountain. It was at night, and Nita was out by herself, coming home from Charlotte, where she had been attending a refresher course to maintain her medic's license.

She came upon the accident about thirty minutes after it had happened, and she quickly called it in on her radio. She then went about getting all six doctors to safety, making mental notes about who was injured, and how badly. Everyone seemed to be fine, with minor cuts and bruises, except the driver, who was trapped behind the steering wheel. He had hit his head on the windshield, causing it to spider all the way across, and was bleeding heavily from the cuts on his forehead and face. She applied a pressure bandage and asked one of the other men to apply pressure to the man's forehead while she attended to the other doctor's injuries.

Finally, her crew mates arrived and together, they extricated the pinned doctor from under the steering wheel. Nita helped lay the man down on the gurney from the waiting ambulance, and was about to walk away, when the doctor reached out and grabbed her hand. She bent down to hear what he had to say.

"Nita, I really want to thank you for saving my life tonight. And, I want you to know that I'm going to help you get that medic program started here."

She squeezed his hand, and with a tear in her eye, she whispered a choked, "Thank you, Doc,", and helped load the gurney into the back of the ambulance. She climbed in after him, asking one of her crew mates to please bring her truck to the hospital to pick her up.

Let's just say that those doctors were pretty impressed by her knowledge and efficiency, and each of them decided to do their part to get that paramedic program started, because they now could see that the program worked. Thus, today Nita was going to meet with LA county's two finest paramedics, Roy DeSoto, and John Gage.

Needless to say, she was pretty excited about meeting these two guys, because deep down, she knew it might be years before Shelby could come up with enough money to properly handle a real medic program.

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It had been about a week now since the news had come down about the visit, and now, the day was here. Nita's excitement could not be contained. It was just as well that the week had been slow, because she had hardly slept a wink. Now the guys would be here any minute, and she wanted to be ready. She had run around the station, cleaning things that had never been touched before, hanging clean curtains over the windows, washing and waxing her rescue truck, making sure that the rest of the crew had done the same to their engine. Now that the day had arrived, everything was gleaming and clean.

It was around two pm when Captain Jones found Nita near his office. She had climbed up on the window ledge and was cleaning the cobwebs down. He gave her a light pat on her foot to get her attention, but she was so absorbed in her work, she never heard Cap come in. When he had touched her foot, she thought that a spider had landed on her, and she shrieked accordingly. Since the ledge where she was standing was narrow and not designed for such a jump or landing, she did the only thing she could. Upon coming down from her leap into the air, she pushed off from the wall and dove right over her captain and the two men standing with him.

Nita figured these were those two paramedics coming to help get that program started.

Man, I'm going to get yelled at for pulling this stunt, right in front of our guests, she thought.

A break in concentration caused her to underestimate her distance. Down she fell, right into the arms of the dark haired paramedic, much to his surprise and shock. They both hit the floor and cracked their heads with a resounding thump!

Roy couldn't help but laugh as a confused and bewildered Johnny sat up and looked over at his "attacker". However, upon seeing her sit up a little too slowly, he and Roy both were by her side in an instant. Captain Jones chuckled and drawled out, "Don't worry about her, boys. She's got the hardest noggin I know." All Roy could do was shake his head at the thought of another hard headed paramedic. Johnny held that title exclusively back at Station 51.

Finally, Nita sat up and sputtered her objections, "Get off me! I'm ok. Really, nothing to it!"

Cap looked at her crossly and decided that now was as good a time as any to scold her a little. "Why did you do that, Nita? You just scared about ten years off my life!"

"Well, hell, Cap! How was I to know you weren't some spider coming to take revenge on me for knocking down it's home?"

She looked down a bit, took a deep breathe and looked into the eyes of her captain.

"I'm really sorry about that dive, but I knew if I tried to land on that ledge, I'd have ended up with a broken ankle, foot, or worse."

She looked over at the handsome man she had knocked to the floor just moments before.

"Are you ok? Um..Mr..um..um..." Now I'm embarrassed. How come I can't seem to put a sentence together?

The dark haired paramedic responded, "Yes, I'm ok. And, call me Johnny." He flashed his crooked grin at her, watching her intently. At last, she finally found her voice.

"Ok, Johnny it is. I'm Nita, and I guess you already met Captain Jones."

Johnny nodded his head. "Yes, we did. Oh, this is my partner, Roy, and we are very pleased to meet you."

Roy reached down and shook Nita's hand and then Johnny helped her off the floor. She looked up at him and saw the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen. It seemed for a moment that the world had stopped as he returned her stare while holding her hand firmly, but tenderly. Roy couldn't help but notice the attraction between them and smiled to himself.

"Maybe this time, Junior, maybe this time," he thought to himself.

Captain Jones came over and interrupted the non-verbal exchange between them and barked out, "Ok Nita, if you three are ready, why don't you give these para-what's it's the tour of the station? Then you can show 'em your truck and supplies."

Nita's face colored briefly, and it seemed as fire shot from her eyes, and then she responded, "Ok Cap, but the word is paramedics. Got that? P A R A M E D I C S!!"

She smiled at her dense captain as he walked away, muttering under his breath about parawhosits and parawhatsits. He was an excellent fire fighter, but sometimes his command of the English language was lacking. She groaned softly, thinking to herself about how hard it had been to get this meeting arranged, and now her captain was being his normal, annoying self. Nita shook her head and put a smile on her face and turned to face the two paramedics, who were snickering softly.

"Well then, Mr. DeSoto, Mr. Gage, let's start that tour off right here..." She was interrupted before she could continue.

"Um, Nita, just call us Roy and Johnny. No need for formalities here. We're all a part of this fire fighting family, you know!" Roy smiled as Nita visibly relaxed and smiled. "Ok, great! Well, this is the apparatus bay. I'm sure it's not quite what you're used to, but it works for us. This is the engine, and this pick up is mine. It's been modified with locking panels on the sides to store my medic gear in, as well as other fire fighting equipment. I designed it myself after seeing what was out there, by looking through lots of fire fighting magazines, and the like."

As she went on with her description of her rescue squad, Roy noticed Johnny wasn't exactly paying attention. He was watching Nita and nodding at what she said, but he had a smile on his face, and a sparkle in his eyes that meant only one thing: He was in love-again!

Nita noticed Roy's gaze, and glanced quickly to notice he was watching his partner. She noticed that Johnny was looking at her with that smile (that beautiful smile ) and stopped talking. She stared back into his eyes and smiled softly and took his hand into hers. Johnny leaned down and a little closer so she could whisper in his ear.

"Listen Johnny, if you keep staring at me like that, we'll never get anything done today!" She squeezed his hand and giggled softly.

Johnny blushed deeply as he continued to gaze at the woman standing before him.

"Wow!" he thought to himself. "She has such lovely long red hair, and those green eyes. How am I going to work around her without drowning in those eyes?"

After an awkward couple of seconds, Nita broke the silence. "Ok ya'll. If you'll follow me, I'll show you the rest of the station and get you some gear to use while you're here. You can stow your stuff in my truck."

She gave the guys a turnout coat, helmet and a pair of gloves to use, then they continued looking around the station. They finally ended up in the kitchen and had just poured themselves a cup of coffee when the alarm rang.

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Hello everyone! Yep, I'm finally getting around to posting my other E! fic. Yes, I know...I'm in this story. To explain...I wanted to write a story where I could live out my fantasy of being a paramedic and actually work with Johnny and Roy. And...I wanted to be able to either fall for John, or have him fall for me. I realized that a lot of you are screaming "mary sue" right now, but I did read what a mary sue is...and I don't think this story will fall into that category. Not once it's all completely done! So, please read it and review it, and give it a chance. It's going to have lots of action, adventure, romance, and angst. I do hope you will enjoy reading it. I certainly enjoyed writing it!

Oh, please...no flames. If you didn't like it, it's ok! Just say in your review that you didn't like it, and leave it at that. Flames will be deleted and ignored. Nothing will deter me from posting this story!!! LOL Except a power outage!!!! LOL

Take care...Nita